


Tumbling down

by dragonesdepapel



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonesdepapel/pseuds/dragonesdepapel
Summary: He has one lost phone call from Jack. No voice messages, five texts.I'm sorry if I made you upset.I love you.So much.I hope you feel better in the morning.Text me when you are feeling up to it?





	Tumbling down

Every day Bitty wakes up, showers, takes a selfie and sends it to Jack. That's the general outline of his morning routine. Jack says that routines and outlines and habit-making are important when trying to achieve goals. (He might have been talking exclusively about essay writing at the time and Bitty might have taken it a bit too literal. He prefers to think that it just means that he listens to Jack's advice).

There's usually more stuff thrown in there too, like practice, or taking more than the one selfie. Most days there's breakfast (but not all, sorry Jack). There's no more coffee at Annie's, which means no more mornings with Jack, but it also means that he doesn't need any more checking clinics. (Keeping track of progress is also important, especially when you are feeling overwhelmed.)

Then it gets more complicated, less linear. More like an idea dump than an actual routine. There's class, for sure, but every day is a bit like reaching inside a bag and seeing what he gets. The options include homework, baking, extra practice, editing, Annie's... If he's lucky, he'll get some texting time with Jack. Sometimes he meets with professor Atwell, or he might have to go on a grocery run.

Nights are easier. Most of the team is free by then, so there's little to no chance that he'll skip dinner. He'll do some study or work on a vlog while he waits for Jack's call. Hang up, set the alarm, go to sleep.

* * *

 

It's not so much that he forgets to send the selfie. More like he spends ten minutes trying to get one right, finally decides that he needs a change in location, and, by the time he makes it downstairs, realizes how late it is so he has to rush out the door, Jack's awaiting chat gone from his mind for a few seconds. After a while goes by without answer, Jack teases him about it. Bitty replies that it slipped his mind. It's kind of the truth after all.

By the time class ends, his notebook pages are covered in hearts and initials. He's sure that he also took actual notes somewhere in there. He'll look at them later, write them down in a clear page. But first there's lunch, which is starting to sound amazing if he's being honest. Did he actually get to eat the slice of pie he had taken from the fridge that morning? He knows he had coffee, he drank it on his way to class. Perhaps he forgot about it on his rush to get out of the Haus. That would explain why he's feeling so hungry. 

In any case, he's having lunch with the frogs now, and that's what matters. He listens as they tell him all about their latest face off with the lax team. They ask him about his classes and Bitty just smiles. It's not hard to get them to talk about the next kegster instead.

He has another class and then he's free for the rest of the day. He stops by the Haus to gather his stuff and heads to the library. He finds himself a free table and carefully arranges his workspace (it minimizes the chances of getting distracted). He has his computer, his notes from class, an empty notebook, and the required readings. He also brought some flashcards from a different class in case he needs to take a break from this essay. Finding the right file in his computer is easy, and so is opening it. The outline is basically done, but he reads it again in case he missed something.

Then he gets to the first paragraph. The one that is a summary of the whole thing and so needs to be perfect. It still sounds awkward, like it was written by someone who kinda knew what essays were supposed to sound like, but that had never written one themselves. He deletes, then rewrites, and stares at it for a little while.

Maybe it would be best to finish setting up those flashcards, give his brain some time to come up with better ideas.

Once he's done with that, there's only fifteen minutes left before the Falc's game starts, but he manages to leave the first paragraph alone and get started on the rest. He keeps a pen on his hand and blank page in front of him while he watches. And ok, maybe it isn't the most productive way to work on an essay, but at least he ends up with a couple more phrases than the ones he had when the game started.

The guys try to lure him into a game of Mario Kart once he gets back to the Haus, but he goes straight to his room. He had gone to bed late the night before, so it's no surprise he feels exhausted. He'll go to sleep early, try again in the morning. All there's left to do is to wait for Jack's call. He puts on his pajamas and pulls up twitter to pass the time. He starts typing then remembers there's still some mentions and messages he hasn't gotten around to replying yet. It feels wrong to tweet before doing that.

He closes the app.

Jack's phone call finds him erasing photos from his gallery. The selfies he took that morning are the first ones to go and they are soon followed by most of the pictures that were sent to the team group chat that week. He doesn't even remember seeing most of them.

He lets Jack's voice sooth him. He's feeling so relaxed and sleepy that it catches him off guard when Jack asks about his day. Bitty lists it off: class, lunch, class, library. He is about to launch into the story that Chowder told him during lunch when Jack asks how he's doing with his essay.

And it just. Jack's tone, it rubs Bitty the wrong way, that's what it does. Like Jack is implying that he thinks Bitty didn't actually work on it today. Like he thinks Bitty doesn't understand how important it is that this gets done and sent on time. Well, Bitty does know, thank you very much, and he is working hard on it, and he tells Jack as much. And then of course Jack acts all surprised, like he doesn't know what he was doing.

"I'm just tired, Jack" Bitty says, cutting off whatever apology is falling from Jack's mouth. Because he is. He's tired. He's tired of late hours that never seem to pay off, and he's tired of this essay, and he's tired of this class, and he's tired of feeling like nothing he does is ever enough.

He stares at his phone screen after he ends the call. He knows he said goodnight before he did so, and he has a vague recollection of Jack saying it back, but he can't remember the exact words or tone. It's better he doesn't. This way he can turn his phone off and try to sleep instead of spending the rest of the night dissecting their words and their meaning.

Except, he can't turn his phone off because then his alarm wouldn't work. And he has practice tomorrow, and a morning class, and a million other things to do.

He settles for setting it on airplane mode.

He hugs Señor Bunny tight against his chest and burrows under the covers. He presses an arm against his eyes even if there's no way the light can bother him under there. And, isn't this just like him though? To hide, figuratively and literally, under the covers and pretend nothing ever happened? When has that ever worked for him? His essay isn't going to write itself. His exams aren't going to pass themselves. Jack isn't going to...

God, Jack. Bitty was such a jerk. There he was, taking time to ask about Bitty's day after a game and what did Bitty do? Gone off on him for no reason. He was just being nice! Jack has so much pressure on his shoulders, the last thing he needs is for Bitty to behave like that. He is supposed to make things easier for him, not harder.

But that is all he ever does, isn't it? Bitty's problems are barely able to be called that. He has essays and exams, nothing anyone his age isn't able to handle. He's in a relationship with the best man he has ever known. His friends know about it and are nothing but supportive of it, and of everything Bitty does. He has a sports scholarship. All he has to do is pass his classes and he can't even handle that.

How could he ever believe he could be good for Jack?

Jack's good and selfless and dedicated and Bitty is the complete opposite of that. Bitty is selfish and self-centered and lazy and-

And he put his phone on airplane mode, and Jack has anxiety, and Bitty hung up on him after barely saying goodbye, and if he tried calling back and Bitty's phone went straight to voice mail...

He kicks the blankets away as he sits up. He tries grabbing his phone but knocks it off the nightstand instead. The movement makes the screen light up though, and he's able to find it without having to turn on the lights. With shaky hands, he unlocks it and disables the airplane mode.

He has one lost phone call from Jack. No voice messages, five texts.

_I'm sorry if I made you upset._

_I love you._

_So much._

_I hope you feel better in the morning._

_Text me when you are feeling up to it?_

And Bitty knows, he really knows, the last thing he should be doing right now is calling Jack. It's a bad, terrible, selfish idea. But all evidence tonight is saying that Bitty is a terrible, selfish person, so he might as well do it. 

Besides, maybe that's what makes it the right choice. The push that Jack needs to realize that Bitty is possibly the worst person he could be dating, and that he needs to get the hell out of this relationship, quickly.

"Bits?" Jack answers much faster than he should have. (That's bad, he should be asleep. He would be if it weren't for Bitty.)

And Bitty can't tell, in this moment, what his plan was when he pressed call. All he knows is that suddenly he's crying and that he can't stop. He says he's sorry over and over and over again. (He could apologize a thousand times and it still wouldn't be enough).

After a while, he either runs out of energy, or Jack soft reassurances finally manages to calm him down. He's not sure which one is it.

"It's ok bud, it's ok," Jack is saying. (It's not.)

"I shouldn't have treated you like that."

"I know you didn't mean it," Jack's quick to reply, and Bitty can hear the relief in his voice at finally being given a complete sentence.

"That's not an excuse, Jack."

"Maybe not, but you called to apologize and I accept your apology. Do you want to talk about what's really going on?"

He doesn't. But he guesses that after everything he put Jack through tonight, he deserves at least some kind of explanation.

"I don't know. I guess I'm more stressed about school than I realized." And wow, it sounds even more pathetic now that he has said it out loud.

Jack hums understandably, and Bitty is really trying to stay calm, he really is, but he also can’t really let go of it so easily.

"You don't have to do that," is what he ends up saying, and it comes out a bit too harsh. He takes a deep breath. Jack is not the problem here, he doesn’t want to talk to him like that.

"Do what?" asks Jack, and this time Bitty can hear that he seriously doesn't know what Bitty means.

"Give me a free pass because I'm a mess or whatever."

"First, I'm not giving you a free pass. Yeah, you snapped at me when I was just asking about your day but bud, that happens sometimes. And it's not like you said anything too terrible. I said way worse things to you when you were a freshman." Bitty wants to argue that this isn't the same thing, but Jack doesn't give him room to do so. “And second, I don't think you are a mess, or pathetic, or anything else that you might be thinking right now. It breaks my heart that you are feeling like this and I would do anything to make it all better for you, but that's because I love you and I want you to be ok."

"How can you-" Bitty starts, but chokes on the words. "After tonight..." he tries again, with the same result. He feels the tears forming up again.

"Because I do, Bits. I love you because of everything you are. And this isn't you, this is just a bad night."

"It is me, though," he argues weakly.

"But it's not all you are, bud. And I love you tonight, as much as I will love you tomorrow, and the week after that."

"Ok" he says, because that's all he can manage right now. He might be crying a bit again. (He totally is.)

"You could come down here for the weekend. I won't be home much but you'll have a quiet place to work on your essay and I'll help you when I'm around. Would that be ok?"

"Jack, that’s unnecessary," he protests. "These are my issues and I should be able to handle them on my own. You have enough on your plate." He might not be feeling as overwhelmed as before, but this is still true.

"I want to do it. And I know you can handle it. You've been doing it so far, haven't you? But I'd like to help, if you want me to."

Bitty lets himself think about it for a minute. Jack's place offers far few distractions than the Haus. Jack does have a busy schedule so he won't actually have time to do much. But knowing that if he's done quickly enough he might have time to spend with Jack might be a good source of motivation. If anything, he can try to make it up to him for everything he's done for Bitty tonight.

"Ok," he finally agrees.

"Great," Jack says, and Bitty can't believe that having permission to help him with his homework can make him sound so happy. "Are you ready to go to sleep now?"

"Yes." He feels like he should apologize again, but he knows Jack won't have it, and he has kept him awake long enough.

"Great," Jack repeats. "We'll talk in the morning, then. Goodnight."

"'Night. I love you," Bitty says, hoping Jack can hear how much he means it.

“Love you too, Bits.”

This time, when he burrows under the covers, he doesn't need to hold Señor Bun so tightly. 


End file.
